[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., USA
Aug. 5 TEXAS: Capital murder charge dropped in 2012 death of Hearne city councilman A contaminated crime scene and lack of evidence prompted Robertson County's top prosecutor to drop capital murder charges Tuesday against a man accused of killing former Hearne City Councilman Charles Workman almost 3 years ago. Kevin Aundrell Godfrey, 21, pleaded guilty to arson in the torching of the dead councilman's Jaguar. Godfrey, who never before had been convicted of a felony, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars and waived any appeal. District Attorney Coty Siegert said he made the decision to drop the case after looking at all the evidence and talking to Workman's family. He said the crime scene was contaminated after 25 to 30 people walked through it before police were called, the murder weapon was never found and there wasn't direct DNA evidence tying Godfrey to the crime. Someone even went through his pockets to find his phone before officers arrived at the scene in September 2012. There also was a high chance that the state could not carry its burden of proving at trial murder beyond a reasonable doubt, Siegert said of the case in which, if convicted, Godfrey would have faced life in prison or the death penalty. While there was strong evidence of his involvement, being in possession of a stolen vehicle does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kevin Godfrey committed murder. Godfrey was indicted after authorities said there was enough evidence linking him to Workman's death. Workman, 63, was shot in the face and torso 6 times and his home was burglarized, according to a copy of the indictment. The night before Workman's body was discovered, firefighters responded to a car fire north of Texas 6 at Old San Antonio Road, where Godfrey was spotted asking firefighters for a ride, according to Godfrey's arrest report. The vehicle was later determined to be Workman's white 2000 Jaguar containing some of his belongings, including clothing, compact discs and paperwork, according to the court document. Godfrey was found in College Station after investigators linked him to the burning vehicle through witnesses and security footage from the Get-N-Go convenience store at Texas 6 and Harvey Mitchell Parkway. He also was charged at the time with arson, which is a 2nd-degree felony carrying a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. That's the crime he pleaded guilty to Tuesday rather than face the capital case. David Barron, who represented Godfrey along with Phil Banks and Amy Banks, said not only does he believe his client wasn't involved in the shooting, but Workman's family also doesn't think Godfrey was responsible. There were several other suspects, but once police linked Mr. Godfrey to the stolen car, the case was closed to them, Barron said. Phil Banks said Godfrey likely will be eligible for parole consideration within a few years since he's already served three years behind bars, which counts toward his 15-year sentence. Siegert said Godfrey's DNA was found on a cigarette at Workman's house, but that wouldn't have been out of the ordinary since he was friends with Godfrey's nephew, and the pair sometimes stayed with Workman. The nephew found Workman dead after entering the house through an open window because the doors were locked, according to authorities. The prosecutor said that's likely the same way the killer gained access to the house. If any new evidence is brought forth, we can pursue that, said Siegert, who was elected to office several months after the slaying. The facts of this case demonstrate why it is so important to contact law enforcement immediately to allow them to preserve all evidence without contamination, he said, adding that since taking office he's been taking steps with law enforcement to work better as a team. It is my goal that we all do our sworn duties to the best of our abilities not just to convict but to see that justice is done. (source: The Eagle) NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina kickstarts its machinery of death When he finally died, Dennis McGuire had gasped, choked, writhed against his restraints and clenched his fists for more than 20 minutes. I saw a man murdered, says Father Lawrence Hummer, a pastor who witnessed McGuire's death by lethal injection last January in Ohio. It was just ghastly. McGuire's gruesomely lengthy execution - it was supposed to take about 5 minutes - was performed with the untested combination of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone. The victim's family members say McGuire, convicted of raping and murdering a pregnant woman in 1989, got what was coming to him. Regardless, his death was 1 of at least 3 lengthy, torturous executions in the U.S. last year, the result of states' desperate experimentation to find reliable lethal injection drugs from a shrinking supply of willing drug providers. There are 148 prisoners on death
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., USA, N.Y., MISS.
April 25 TEXAS: High Court Throws Out 3 Death Sentences The Supreme Court threw out death sentences for 3 Texas killers Wednesday because of problems with instructions given jurors who were deciding between life in prison and death. In the case of LaRoyce Lathair Smith, the court set aside the death penalty for the 2nd time. It also reversed death sentences for Brent Ray Brewer and Jalil Abdul-Kabir. The cases all stem from jury instructions that Texas hasn't used since 1991. Under those rules, courts have found that jurors were not allowed to give sufficient weight to factors that might cause them to impose a life sentence instead of death. The three 5-4 rulings had the same lineup of justices, with Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and John Paul Stevens forming the majority. When the jury is not permitted to give meaningful effect or a 'reasoned moral response' to a defendant's mitigating evidence...the sentencing process is fatally flawed, Stevens wrote in Abdul-Kabir's case Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Roberts took aim at his colleagues in the majority in dissents he wrote in the Abdul-Kabir and Brewer cases. The court should have deferred to lower court rulings against the defendants because there was no clearly established federal law that judges could have followed to grant relief. Whatever the law may be today, the Court's ruling that 'twas always so' and that state courts were 'objectively unreasonable' not to know it' is utterly revisionist, Roberts said. Smith was sentenced to die for the murder of Jennifer Soto, a former coworker at a Taco Bell who was stabbed and shot in a failed robbery. In 2004, the justices overturned Smith's sentence because jurors were not allowed to consider sufficiently the abuse and neglect that Smith had suffered as a child. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reinstated the death penalty, however, saying any errors involving the jury instructions were harmless. Abdul-Kabir, also known as Ted Calvin Cole, was convicted in 1988 of using a dog leash to strangle Raymond Richardson, 66, during a $20 robbery at his San Angelo home. Abdul-Kabir's lawyers contend the jury that condemned him had no way to take into account the mistreatment and abandonment that contributed to his violent adult behavior. The same sentencing problems applied to Brewer, convicted of fatally stabbing 66-year-old Robert Laminack, who was attacked in 1990 outside his Amarillo flooring business and robbed of $140. Brewer was abused as a child and suffered from mental illness, factors his jurors weren't allowed to consider, according to his petition. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld the death penalty for Brewer and Abdul-Kabir. 47 inmates on Texas' death row were sentenced under the rules that the state abandoned in 1991. The cases are Smith v. Texas, 05-11304, Brewer v. Quarterman, 05-11287, and Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman, 05-11284. (source: Associated Press) * Senate OKs 'Jessica's Law' with limits on death penalty The Texas Senate passed its long-awaited Jessica's Law Tuesday to protect children from sexual predators, but it reserved the death penalty for those twice convicted of the most heinous child rapes. The bill also creates a new offense for continual sexual abuse of a child, increases penalties for certain child sex offenses and removes the statute of limitations for victims of child sex crimes. I am confident that this legislation will help protect the safety of our children and send a clear message to those who would prey on them. Don't do it, said the bill's author, Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville. The Senate's bill now returns to the House, where members can concur or call for a conference committee to work out differences. The bill is named after 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford of Florida who was kidnapped, raped and buried alive two years ago, shocking the nation and prompting more than a dozen states to pass tougher child-predator laws. I know that by protecting our children, we protect the future of this great state, said Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Deuell explained that the bill creates new categories of super aggravated assaults against children under age 14 that involve the use of a deadly weapon, alcohol or drugs, death threats, bodily injury, kidnapping or gang rape. The highest penalties are also reserved for raping a child under age 6. A first conviction for any of the above would carry a minimum sentence of 25 years. A second conviction would result in life in prison without parole or death. Dewhurst, who said he's almost gotten tired of hearing all this talk about the death penalty, predicted that most prosecutors will opt for life without parole instead. Lone dissenter Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, the only dissenter in the 30-1 vote, said he's concerned about expanding the death penalty in Texas when DNA
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., USA
April 24 TEXAS: Texas lawmakers push possible death penalty for repeat sex offenders The Texas Senate on Tuesday passed a bill targeting sexual predators that includes a possible death penalty for those who are twice convicted of raping children under 14. I can think of no more solemn duty than the protection of our most innocent and vulnerable citizens, said state Senator Bob Deuell, who sponsored the measure. Texas already has the most active death row in the United States. If the bill becomes law, Texas would be the sixth state to allow some child sex offenders to be sentenced to death. The others are Florida, Montana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina. To become law, lawmakers from the state Senate and House must agree on a version of the bill, and Governor Rick Perry must approve it. Perry has called the passage of a child sex offender bill a legislative emergency. The House has approved a diferent version of the bill. The bill creates new categories of sexually violent offenses against children under 14, including categories for crimes committed involving kidnapping, date-rape drugs and deadly weapons. Such crimes, or any aggravated sexual assault on a child under 6, automatically carry a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. A second offense of those crimes could carry the death penalty. Critics have asked whether the death penalty in cases where the victim does not die would be unconstitutional. In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the death penalty in a Georgia rape case. Louisiana has one inmate on death row in a child sex crime, but the case is still subject to appeals in state and federal courts. We want to deter people. We don't want victims. But if a crime happens, we want to give our prosecutors the tools to make convictions, Deuell said. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Poll: Death penalty support wanes in N.C. More than 1/3 of North Carolina adults now believe life in prison is the most appropriate punishment for 1st-degree murder as support for the death penalty wanes, according to a poll released Tuesday. The poll found that 58 % of adults support the death penalty, but only 48 % said it's always the most appropriate punishment for those convicted of 1st-degree murder, according to researchers at Elon University. Another 10 % said the sentence depends on the circumstances. About 38 % of respondents said they believe life in prison is the most appropriate sentence for murderers. Those numbers indicated a significant shift from a November 2005 Elon poll that showed nearly 2/3 of adults supported the death penalty, and 61 % said it was always the most appropriate punishment for 1st-degree murder. Just 27 % preferred life in prison. Poll director Hunter Bacot said North Carolinians are reviewing their positions on the death penalty in light of several exonerations and the botched case against three Duke University lacrosse players, in which a zealous prosecutor charged the men with rape despite flimsy evidence. Attorney General Roy Cooper declared the players innocent earlier this month - a year after they were charged. There's always been the sentiment that the system is fair for the most part, Bacot said. But people are now looking back and wondering if people are truly getting a fair shake in the courts. Mark Kleinschmidt, executive director of the Durham-based Fair Trial Initiative, said the poll is another measure of the public's growing distaste for the death penalty. I find it remarkable, Kleinschmidt said. Those are some of the lowest numbers I've seen in the long time. I was actually surprised that the numbers dropped that much. But Lee Peacock, whose grandmother was killed in Trinity in 1991, said victims' families need to start rallying together to tell their stories. Over the last several years, it's the victims and the families of the victims who are not getting heard, Peacock said. We need to speak out more about our daily suffering. In 1993, James Williams was convicted of murder in the death of Peacock's grandmother, Elvie Rhodes. He's still on death row. The poll, which surveyed 476 adults from households in North Carolina last week, has a margin of error of 4.6 percent. It comes as North Carolina's top officials try to figure out how to break a legal stalemate that has placed an effective moratorium on the death penalty. The North Carolina Medical Board declared in January that any doctor who participates in an execution violates medical ethics and could face sanction. The decision triggered a series of legal actions, and a state judge has placed five executions on hold. No other executions have been scheduled. Elon pollsters also questioned respondents about their support for corporal punishment in schools, which is also getting a new review in the General Assembly. A House committee approved a ban earlier this month. But nearly 55 % of adults said in the poll they support corporal punishment in schools, and
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS., N.C., USA, N.Y., ARK., MISS.
Nov. 24 TEXAS: Graves' lawyers say gag order is unfairSince defense objects, judge's issuance of one is called unusual Attorneys for former death-row inmate Anthony Graves say a gag order will prevent him from receiving a fair retrial, given the history of prosecutorial misconduct in the case. Graves neither seeks nor wants the court to enter a gag order in this matter and feels that the entry of a gag order will actually cause him to receive a lesser fair trial rather than a more fair trial, his attorneys say in a court document. Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys could comment because of an oral gag order issued in September by Burleson County District Court Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett. Attorneys experienced in First Amendment law say that it is unusual for a judge to impose a gag order in the face of opposition by the defense. It's not unheard-of, but more often than not, the defense would be supporting or seeking one, said Dallas attorney Paul Watler, former president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. The defense normally has the most to gain from a gag order, said Austin attorney David Donaldson. In most cases they want to have a gag order because they want the prosecution not to talk about all the bad things the client did, Donaldson said. But Graves' attorneys are expected to vigorously oppose the imposition of a written version of the gag order at a hearing Towslee-Corbett has scheduled for Thursday. Graves is being retried because the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March threw out his 1994 capital murder conviction for the slaying of a grandmother and 5 children in Somerville. Other evidence Journalism students at St. Thomas University in Houston, part of the University of Houston's Innocence network, say they have evidence that proves Graves is innocent. His attorneys Jeff Blackburn and David Mullin, of Amarillo, and Nicole Casarez, of Houston say they are working for free because they think they are defending an innocent man. The appeals court issued a blistering opinion accusing Burleson County prosecutors of misconduct, including the failure to disclose statements that could have aided Graves. The defense wants an open trial to prevent further misconduct, the court filing says. Graves has 12 years of life in prison to show for what happens when the integrity of the criminal justice system fails and rightfully has reason to distrust the criminal justice system, his attorneys wrote. Moreover, the public as a whole has a legitimate interest in the integrity of the Burleson County Criminal justice system as well especially in a case involving a retrial, the document says. Several Burleson County courtroom officers in the retrial are linked to the 1994 trial. Graves' attorneys have even subpoenaed the current prosecutors, Assistant District Attorney Joan Scroggins, who was part of the 1994 prosecution team, and District Attorney Renee Mueller. Mueller was an assistant district attorney in 1994 but was not part of the prosecution team. Towslee-Corbett is the daughter of the judge who presided over the 1994 trial, District Judge Harold Towslee. First Amendment attorneys agree with the judge, as she writes in her proposed gag order, that the prosecution as well as the defense are entitled to a fair trial. Burden on judge A fair trial for the prosecution means a jury that has not been influenced by publicity about the case, Watler said. Really, that's the whole ball of wax, Watler said. But Austin attorney Joel White said the proposed order is flawed because it fails to outline a reason for the gag order other than stating that there has been pretrial publicity. Gag orders don't typically stand up unless a judge dots her i's and crosses her t's, White said. He said the judge must show that a gag order is the last resort and that other measures won't work, such as a change of venue, intensely questioning prospective jurors or sequestering the jury. It cannot simply be presumed that because of pretrial publicity there is any risk, Watler said. Donaldson thinks Graves should put his faith in the system. I don't buy the idea that they have a right to pretrial publicity, Donaldson said. Our whole system is based on the idea that trial judges do listen to appellate judges. (source: Houston Chronicle) NEW YORK: Ex-death row inmate will speak to students Former death row inmate Gary Beeman will speak to criminal-justice students at Niagara University on Monday in Room 405/406 of St. Vincent's Hall. The public is invited to attend his lecture, which will be presented to a graduate school class that meets from 4:20 to 7 p.m. Now living in Niagara Falls, Beeman spent 3 years on death row at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility after being wrongfully accused of aggravated murder in 1976. Serving as his own attorney, Beeman eventually won his freedom after another person confessed that he had framed Beeman. Active in the movement
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS/N.C., USA, N.Y., ILL.
July 6 TEXAS/NORTH CAROLINA: Though no longer here in the capital of capital punishment, Scott Langley still combats the death penalty daily. Stumph chats with Peggy Kandies, who cradles a baby doll in memory of her son on death row. 5 years ago outside the Walls Unit in Huntsville, on the night the State of Texas prepared to execute Lois Robison's son, young photographer Scott Langley watched as she screamed and cried on the sidewalk. 18 years earlier, Robisons son Larry, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had killed and mutilated his roommate and four neighbors in Fort Worth, the town where Langley was born and grew up. Outside Texas' death-row unit, Langley, just out of SMU, was supposed to be taking pictures of the execution-night vigil. But for once hed forgotten and left his camera in the car and he couldnt bear to go back and get it. Instead of capturing the moment on film, the 22-year-old instead found himself captured by what he saw and heard that night. It changed him forever. A year earlier, in the spring of his senior year, Langley had taken a course with SMU history professor and Amnesty International USA Chairman Rick Halperin. The class, called Human Rights and the American Dilemma, included the requirement that students create a piece of art illuminating a human rights issue. It could be anything we wanted except for dance, he said, because he doesnt know how to grade dance, Langley said. The Eastern Hills High School graduate had been on the photography staff of the SMU Daily Campus for 3 years and was photo editor in 1998 when the newspaper was named the best college paper in Texas. So, naturally, Langley chose a photography project. It's a little more complex tracing back the reasons for the subject he picked: the effects of Texas' active death chamber. Count his upbringing as the son of a Methodist minister for part of that and probably also the night he got a personal introduction to the legal systems capacity for injustice and violence. For the project, he photographed his first death-house vigil in March 1999, and even then the project was changing him. In an impromptu speech on the day of his graduation from SMU a couple of months later, Langley had said he wanted to change the world through photography. But the following January, he had left his camera in his car and couldn't capture the image of Lois Robisons suffering outside the prison where her son was being killed. I just couldnt bring myself to go get it and take the picture, he said. I just felt like it wasn't appropriate. Even though I balked at that moment and didn't take the picture, I think it was at that moment that I was like, 'I can't let this moment pass again.' And he hasn't. A lot of things have changed for Langley since he stood on that Huntsville sidewalk with Lois Robison. He's changed jobs, gotten married, moved away from Fort Worth and the Southwest. The lifelong Methodist has joined a Catholic commune, and in a few months hell become a father. But psychologically, Langley has stayed at Lois Robisons side. His death-penalty photo project continues to this day. In fact, that moment outside the prison in Huntsville has taken him to a full-time calling that goes way beyond photography. He's trying to change the world through a radical, ascetic lifestyle in service to the families of the condemned. With the help of some of those families and with additional leadership from another Texan, Duke University theologian Stanley Hauerwas, Langley has become one of the most visible faces of the anti-death-penalty movement, in a state with one of the busiest death chambers in the country. Not the one in Huntsville, though. This ones on a busy thoroughfare in Raleigh, North Carolina. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, only five states, including Texas, have put more people to death than North Carolinas 42. Recent polls show that, while a majority of North Carolina citizens still favor capital punishment, recent exonerations of innocent death-row inmates have raised questions in enough peoples minds. An even stronger majority favors putting executions on hold long enough to conduct an in-depth study of the states capital trial system. Nearly 1,100 North Carolina businesses, local governments, and community organizations have signed resolutions in favor of a death-penalty moratorium there, far more than in any other state. (By comparison, groups in Texas account for about 275 of these resolutions.) The North Carolina Senate approved a moratorium in April 2003, but the House opted instead to create a special committee to study flaws in the trial and sentencing system. Twenty inmates have been executed since then. North Carolina is probably the best- organized state for activity against the death penalty, said Amnestys Halperin. Since December, Langley and other protesters have been trespassing in the driveway of North Carolinas Central Prison in Raleigh, the place that houses the
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news------TEXAS, N.C., USA
June 29 TEXAS: Texas delays Hoosier's execution The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has blocked the execution of an Indiana man who was scheduled to die Thursday for a double slaying in the Dallas area more than 15 years ago. Charles Dean Hood, 35, would have been the 10th Texas prisoner put to death this year. The appeals court delayed the punishment after lawyers argued jurors who determined Hood should be executed did not get proper instructions that would have allowed them to consider mitigating factors such as Hood's difficult family life and childhood injuries and illnesses that left him brain-damaged. The court order Monday came after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected another appeal that sought additional DNA testing on evidence used against him at his trial. The state court ruling sends the case back to the trial court in Collin County. Hood came to Texas in 1989 to work in construction and wound up as a bouncer at a topless club in Plano, a Dallas suburb. When he lost his job at the club, one of the bar's patrons, Dallas computer company operator Ronald Williamson, let him stay at his Plano home and paid him to do odd jobs. One of the dancers at the bar, Tracie Lynn Wallace, also was living there. Williamson, 46, and Wallace, 26, were found shot to death in the house Nov. 1, 1989. Hood, 20 at the time of the slayings, was arrested in his native Vincennes, Ind., driving Williamson's $70,000 Cadillac. He said he had Williamson's permission to use the car and has insisted he was not responsible for their deaths. I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, Hood said in a recent interview. But I have never killed nobody. At least 5 other Texas inmates have execution dates over the next 4 months. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Deonstrations mark Day of Action Against Torture DEMONSTRATIONS IN RALEIGH MARK INTERNATIONAL DAY TO STOP TORTURE Activists from a coalition of groups advocating for human rights, the abolition of the death penalty, and the ending of U.S. torture in prisons gathered to demonstrate today in observance of the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which was June 26. With growing public criticism surrounding the abuse and torture in U.S. operated prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantanamo Bay, a group of North Carolinians met at Raleigh's Central Prison on Monday afternoon to make the connection between the torture of prisoners in military prisons overseas and the executions taking place on death rows in the United States. The U.S. practice of torturing and abusing prisoners in places such as Guantanamo and Abu Grahib goes against international standards of human rights and human decency. Likewise, people are beginning to see that here in the US, our practice of injecting prisoners with lethal drugs or electrocuting them to death also constitutes torture and is a grave human rights abuse in the world's eyes, said Scott Langley, Amnesty International's Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator in North Carolina. At the prison, activists held signs that read Stop Torture and Stop the Executions for motorists driving on Western Boulevard to see. With the Monday rush hour passing by, the message was seen by many who regularly pass by the prison which houses 172 men on death row in addition to the states execution facilities. Earlier in day during Monday morning rush hour traffic, motorists traveling west down Western Boulevard past Central Prison were greeted by an electronic road sign reading End Torture Now. Apparently, to start off the Raleigh day of action against torture, someone had hacked the city road construction system and changed the words that once said Pullen Road Closed - Use Morrill Drive. The change stayed for several hours before public officials took notice and changed the sign back to its original message. This day of demonstrations and actions in Raleigh come the day after the international community recognized June 26 as a day to end torture. Organizations such as Amnesty International and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee have been organizing nationwide STOP TORTURE campaigns to draw attention to the torture being carried out by governments throughout the world, and in particular, what the United States has been involved in over the last several years. Another group, North Carolinians against Torture, will be holding a public event as part of this years campaign to stop torture. As part of the event, to be held over the weekend of August 26 and 27, Jennifer Harbury (author, U.S. Attorney, and human rights activist) will be discussing her campaign to bring citizen indictments against Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenat for their involvement in government torture policies. She will take these indictments to Washington D.C. the weekend of Sept 24-26 where she will have a mock trial of these three. Additionally, weekly demonstrations against the death penalty will continue through the
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news-----TEXAS, N.C., USA
Oct. 21 TEXAS: Jurors debate murder penalty Jurors didn't reach a decision Wednesday in the Joe David Padron capital murder case but will meet again today to decide whether he should die or spend his life in prison for his role in the November 2002 gang-related shooting deaths of 2 men. On Tuesday, jurors convicted Padron, 28, of capital murder for the deaths of Jesus Omar Gonzalez and John Commisky. Padron and Martin Robles, 25, were arrested in November 2002. Robles has since been convicted and sentenced to death. On Wednesday, the sentencing phase of the Padron's trial began. Prosecutors attempted to show that even if Padron was sentenced to life in prison, he would still be a threat to society because he has gang connections and could order violence whether in or out of prison. Prosecutors pointed to the fact that the shootings occurred 3 months after Padron's release from prison. If you understand that this is business, then you'll understand that he will do it again, prosecutor James Sales said in his closing statements to the jury. How many people have to die. When he was 16, Padron was sentenced to 10 years on an involuntary manslaughter conviction for the accidental shooting of his best friend. Defense attorneys Doug Tinker and James Granberry portrayed Padron as a young man who was tragically sent to prison as a teenager and turned to gangs for protection. If given a life sentence, Padron would not be eligible for parole until he has served 40 years. The question before you folks is not whether he will be punished, Tinker said. It is when he will die. You have the power to take a life, but I suggest you don't do it. Carlos Estrada, a local psychologist who interviewed Padron and reviewed some of his school and criminal records, testified that Padron would not pose a threat to society if he were sentenced to a life in prison. It is my opinion, that within the confines of the prison, he is not a dangerous person, Estrada said. (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) * Elwood Jackson Trial For a 2nd evening, jurors in the triple homicide trail of a Lawton man are no doubt thinking about videotape played in court by the prosecution. 44 year old Elwood Jackson faces the death penalty for the shooting deaths of John Limberger and Lena Bohay, and the beating death of Mac Wright. The victims were all co- workers at the Fort Sill Apache Casino before their February, 2003 deaths in a rental home owned by Jackson. District Attorney Robert Schulte expects to possibly rest his case on Friday. (source: KFDX News) *** Jury selection begins in Edinburg massacre trial -- 20-year-old to be 1st of 10 to face capital murder charges In Edinburg, hundreds of potential jurors arrived at the Edinburg City Auditorium on Wednesday for the 1st of 10 capital murder trials in connection with the Jan. 5, 2003, brutal shooting deaths of 6 Edinburg men. Juan Raul Navarro Ramirez, 20, is facing the death penalty, if convicted. He has pleaded innocent to the charges. On Monday, prosecutors Joseph Orendain and Cregg Thompson, along with Ramirezs defense attorneys Alma Garza and Rolando Garza, will begin whittling down the hundreds of potential jurors to a group of 12 to 14 jurors and 2 alternates. A pre-trial hearing Friday in Gonzalezs court will deal with the admissibility of evidence, including statements Ramirez made while in police custody, according to Alma Garza. Jurors will also be brought in today for Humberto Gallo Garza, 30, whose trial is expected to begin after Ramirezs concludes. Ramirezs trial will be in Judge Noe Gonzalezs 370th state District Court at the Hidalgo County Courthouse in Edinburg. Ramirez, arrested in late January 2003, had his case moved to Gonzalezs court earlier this month after another judge, Rodolfo Rudy Delgado of the 93rd state District Court, abruptly transferred the case, citing a heavy criminal caseload. Prosecutors have theorized that Ramirez, the youngest of the 11 alleged Tri-City Bomber gang members charged in the shootings, was one of the gunmen. 6 Edinburg men, several of whom had ties to a rival prison gang, the Texas Chicano Brotherhood, were found shot to death in 2 homes on a property off of Monte Cristo Road in Edinburg. Police have theorized that the Tri-City Bomber members planned to raid the two houses to obtain some stashed marijuana. With no marijuana to be found at the houses, the six men were then killed, according to police theories outlined in probable cause affidavits attached to arrest warrants. The slain men were shot to the extent that their faces were difficult to identify, police have said. The lone survivor, a mother of 2 of the slain men, had been tied up. She told police that the men who raided the housed demanded drugs, according to previous statements from police. The Tri-City Bombers were also linked to a separate multiple slaying Sept. 5, 2003, in Donna where four women
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news---TEXAS, N.C., USA, ILL., OHIO
Feb. 13 TEXAS: Rare death penalty case scheduled to start 5 years ago this month, a silent Betty Lou Beets was executed in Texas' death chamber for killing her 5th husband, found buried inside a well in her front yard. Dubbed the Black Widow, the great-grandmother from East Texas refused to say any final words, though protestors who spoke for her claimed she was a battered woman, a longtime victim of abuse. Beets' execution marked the 2nd time since the Civil War that a woman was put to death in Texas. (The 1st was pickax-killer-turned-born-again-Christian Karla Faye Tucker.) Currently, there are 9 women on Texas' death row. And this week, a 30-year-old woman on trial in San Antonio could face the same fate if she's convicted of capital murder. In a rare case, the state is seeking the death penalty against Asel Abdygapparova, a citizen of Kazakhstan who is accused in the 2001 slaying of Rosa Maria Rosado, a 37-year-old single mother of 2. Abdygapparova's trial is set to begin Monday. Her attorney, Carolyn M. Wentland, has maintained her client had no intention of killing Rosado. In fact, information Abdygapparova gave to detectives led to the arrests of 2 men now convicted in the slaying. Rosado's nude body was found in a shallow grave off a service road. She had been kidnapped, repeatedly raped and strangled. Ramon Hernandez and Santos Minjares are awaiting execution for Rosado's death. According to court documents, Abdygapparova told investigators two men she knew snatched the victim from a bus stop, bound her and drove her to a West Side motel, where she was sexually assaulted. Abdygapparova said she was told to leave the room and buy a shovel. When she returned, the woman was dead. But was Abdygapparova a participant or a bystander? First Assistant District Attorney Michael Bernard has said Abdygapparova's role was more than mere presence, though he declined to go into detail. The prosecutor has said her sex was not a factor in the state's decision to seek the death penalty. For those found guilty of capital murder in Texas, there are only 2 options for punishment - life in prison or death by injection. Even if jurors are convinced of a defendant's guilt, they may be less inclined to assess the death penalty against a woman. Gerald Reamey, a law professor at St. Mary's University, said some jurors might be hesitant to vote for death, reflecting the natural sympathy jurors could have particularly if the woman is participating in a crime along with other people. Women convicted of capital murder tend to be involved in cases with rather egregious facts, such as Tucker's pickax slayings, Reamey said. In modern times, no woman from Bexar County has ever been executed. None of the women now on death row was convicted locally. Since 1923, the only local murder in which a woman was sentenced to death was a 1949 case, and that sentence eventually was commuted to life in prison, according to the district attorney's office. So does the system discriminate along gender lines when it comes to capital punishment? According to the Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, there are 3,471 people on death rows across the country, and 52 of them, roughly 1.5 %, are women. In Texas, the 9 women condemned to die are among 445 convicts on death row. Richard Dieter, executive director of the nonprofit research center - which doesn't take a position on capital punishment - cites several factors when considering the relatively low number of women on death row. For starters, he said, women commit far fewer murders than men do - only about 12 % of all slayings nationwide. Death penalty cases are typically the more heinous kinds of murders, involving multiple victims, rape, torture or slayings committed during the course of another felony, such as robbery, Dieter said. Such crimes are even less likely to be committed by a woman, he said. There may be a preferential bias toward women among jurors or prosecutors or judges, but the numbers (of condemned women) are so small, it's hard to do a statistical study, he said. Calling the death penalty a very personal sort of judgment that human beings are called to make, Dieter said biases and preconceived notions can sometimes seep into jurors' minds. I can't imagine that it doesn't play a role - rich or poor, black or white, male or female. I do think those things do make a difference, he said. (source: San Antonio Express-News) * Female informant faces death penalty if convicted in slaying A Kazakhstani woman who led police to 2 men later convicted of killing a single mother in 2001 now faces her own capital murder trial, and a possible death sentence if convicted. Asel Abdygapparova, 30, is set for trial Monday in the slaying of Rosa Maria Rosado, a 37-year-old mother of 2. Abdygapparova's attorney, Carolyn M. Wentland, has maintained her client had no intention of killing Rosado and even provided
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., USA, NEV., IDAHO, CALIF., TENN.
March 4 TEXAS: Emergency status sought for juvenile execution bills Following this week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bans the execution of juvenile offenders, some state senators on Friday asked Gov. Rick Perry to designate two of their bills as legislative emergencies. Such status allows the bills to move through the Legislature more quickly than other bills. Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, is sponsoring a bill that would ban the execution of juvenile offenders. Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, is sponsoring a bill that would create a life without parole option for Texas juries in capital cases. Until this week, America stood alone in executing juveniles, and Texas was at the front of the line, Ellis said. As the state most affected by the Supreme Court ruling, I believe Texas cannot be passive in its reaction. We should take a positive, proactive step and pass legislation codifying the ruling into Texas law. In a 5-4 decision Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution of inmates convicted of murders committed when they were juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The decision throws out the death sentences of 28 juvenile murderers on Texas' death row. Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Perry would sign a bill addressing the Supreme Court's concern as soon as it reaches his desk. She also said Perry has encouraged the Legislature to debate the option of life without parole. Lucio said it is more important than ever to pass a bill allowing juries to sentence defendants found guilty of capital murder to a life sentence without the opportunity for parole. Essentially, Texas juries will now only have 1 option when sentencing a juvenile in capital crimes cases: life with the possibility of parole, Lucio said. With the law as it is right now, this means that young persons who commit these terrible crimes are guaranteed to someday walk the streets again. The death penalty and life without parole bills are SB226 and SB60. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: N.C. Supreme Court reverses new trial order for convicted killer A man sentenced to life in prison for a stabbing death outside a Guilford County bar in 2001 shouldn't get a new trial, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday in overturning an earlier decision from the state appellate court. In 2003, a divided 3-judge panel of the Court of Appeals determined a jury was unfairly prejudiced by evidence Darren William Dennison was violent with his girlfriend. The justices reversed the ruling, saying Dennison's lawyers didn't object to the girlfriend's testimony during the trial. Therefore, he waived his right to appeal that issue, the high court said. The justices returned Dennison's case to the Court of Appeals to examine outstanding arguments that have yet to be reviewed. In another case, the Supreme Court ruled that a convicted killer already sentenced twice to die will get another resentencing hearing. The justices also upheld a Superior Court judge's ruling that Ronald Lee Poindexter didn't deserve a new trial because defense attorneys at his most recent trial failed to argue that he had a diminished mental capacity. Poindexter was convicted in 1999 of killing Wanda Coltrane 2 years ago and sentenced to death. In 2001, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial after juror misconduct. He was retried in 2002, again convicted of 1st-degree murder and placed on death row. During appeals, Poindexter's appellate attorneys argued he received ineffective counsel during the trial. Randolph County Judge Clarence Horton vacated the latest death sentence but refused to order a new trial or to declare Poindexter mentally retarded as his lawyers requested. North Carolina banned the execution of certain mentally retarded defendants in 2001. Writing for the court, Justice Edward Brady said Poindexter's defense attorneys would have the opportunity to argue about his mental capacity during the hearing. (source: Associated Press) USA: Death penalty for minors illogical Sometimes it takes only a small step in the right direction to inspire hope. In the case of the Supreme Court's decision on Tuesday to outlaw the death penalty for minors, it inspires the hope that perhaps the United States is finally waking up to the idea that government-sponsored murder is barbaric and unethical. Prior to this decision, 19 states (among them, Texas and Florida, but not Ohio) permitted the executions of convicted criminals under the age of 18. Now, the highest court in the land is restricting states from using capital punishment for this age group. Though it may be a far cry from abolishing the death penalty completely, it is a start. Moreover, the decision seems to be part of a trend that hopefully, for the sake of human rights, will continue. Just two years ago, the Supreme Court barred executions for any person considered mentally challenged, on the grounds that such a person would be
